


In Which Sarge Experiences an Unlikely Source of Conflict and an Equally Unlikely Resolution

by LycomingCanadian



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Study, Enemies to Friends, Existential Crisis, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Internal Conflict, Mentioned Blue Team, Neither does Caboose, Sarge doesn't actually swear very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 21:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10772958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LycomingCanadian/pseuds/LycomingCanadian
Summary: Without the Blue Army to receive orders against from Command, Sarge is conflicted in the worst kind of way until he receives a gentle reminder that it doesn't need to be so bad. Pre-Season 7, some time before it begins.





	In Which Sarge Experiences an Unlikely Source of Conflict and an Equally Unlikely Resolution

                Sarge couldn’t sleep.

                Nighttime had long since descended upon the lonely bases standing opposed in the valley, blanketing them and their inhabitants in a comforting darkness accompanied by the humming of insects and rustling of leaves in alien trees. Far above them a vast cosmic mosaic of stars stretched itself across the sky, flickering and scintillating behind lazy clouds and casting a dim light over Valhalla in the absence of the tiny twin moons. As if to top it all off, a sweet scent of pollen from the flowers in the glade below him tickled his nose and served to still his nerves, still pricked as though by needles after their harrowing escape not two days ago from the Freelancer Facility now far behind them. It all came together to form a genuinely beautiful section of the strange planet that continued to puzzle him with its myriad surprises and secrets.

                And yet he couldn’t sleep. It refused to come to him, teasing him from the furthest edge with one bothersome thought- no, reality- that he knew he was directly responsible for and, in many ways, should have been soulfully contented by. Should one have asked him about this he would have denied it vehemently; rather he’d claim he was just a little under the weather and missed the old base in the canyon, but it didn’t take him long to isolate what exactly this little provoking problem was in the end:

                The Blues were gone and the war was over.

                That was it. That was the only thing he had enlisted for; the concept of Red vs. Blue to him was an invigorating, maddening call to take up arms, a beacon of life that had flared up in his head from a beginning he couldn’t truly place, repeating itself day after day after day- and now that all of it was over, the very conclusion he had been fighting for, hoping for, praying for, worth dying for even having come to pass, he was horrified to admit that the beacon had been extinguished, and all that remained inside his head was a vacuum. Without the battle, his life could have no perceivable impact upon nor meaning to the world, and his motivations for doing what he did best- carrying out impossible schemes and building crazy machines- were obsolete. His greatest dream had morphed into his worst nightmare, and it was the irony to end all ironies.

                Grif and Simmons couldn’t understand; they already had found a reason to carry forward. They always had. As long as they stuck together they could go anywhere and maintain the same satisfaction with life they’d always had. Sarge couldn’t even be angry with them for too long if they chose to abandon their noble flag- should nothing be heard from “Command” within a month- as there would be no Red Team, nor Red cause, left to betray. He couldn’t help but feel half-hearted envy for them in this way, for deep down a small, ignored part of his brain wished he was as multifaceted as they were; this was simply not in his programming and it never could be, and as the night wore on he came to the chilling realization that there was only one thing now that kept him from declaring his life as utterly causeless and futile as it could possibly be.

                There was still one solitary Blue occupying the enemy base.

                Sarge had not spoken with Caboose since they’d dragged him out of the shattered blight of rocks and warthog parts on the same evening of the EMP’s release. They had found him unconscious, arms draped loosely over the Epsilon unit on top of him and relatively uninjured; much of his armour plating had been cracked and it looked as though his suit’s biomedical support system had pulled every trick out of its sleeves for the first time ever to stabilize his condition and seal up the many wounds he had to have sustained. The suit itself was a total wreck; the three Reds had ended up stripping him of it and carrying it with them, leaving only his black underclothes and helmet (for removing that would have been just a bit too intimate), and loaded him and Epsilon into the nearby warthog they had found fortuitously parked a few kilometres away from the blister of land, its dead crew scattered about an obvious indicator of the white-armoured monster that had followed them- the Meta, he remembered it being called- coming in from that way before. He’d weighed a ton and didn’t stir- Simmons had commented on his immense physique likely being one of the main contributing factors that kept him alive at all after a drop like that- and Sarge had complained, affronted at having participated in such an effort to recover their mortal enemy and carry him, no less, to his very own brand-new base beside theirs. Abandoning him, Grif had argued, would have been a death sentence, for exposure, dehydration, weakness and grief would have claimed him eventually, forcing him to relent. Now he was beside himself with conflicting feelings about this gesture and had no idea what to do with him.

                If he made the advance and killed Caboose, the last piece of the Red Team’s victory would be secured and life would truly become unlivable by himself. If he let him live peacefully, however, freed from the umbrella of war and conflict that threatened his life so reassuringly, then he knew it’d be equally pointless; he’d torment himself for letting a former enemy get away until he’d reach the breaking point, whereat he’d hunt Caboose down wherever he was to be found, kill him and be met with the same result.

                Again the irony crushed him in a brutal hand, and Sarge was left gasping and clutching at his throbbing temples, breathless and desperate as any man faced with his own ultimatum. It had to stop, for he couldn’t wait the full month for Command to come through and give him the answers he needed to the questions he now asked. His shotgun fell loose from his trembling hand, his armour had been removed while he sat out in the open for the first time in many long years- a sure sign of his inevitable, oncoming madness- and he gripped the chest of his t-shirt in dramatics as he fell backwards onto the cold floor of his base’s roof, legs dangling miserably over its edge. He let out a loud sigh.

                “Ohh, god,” he warbled, “can there be any hope for me? For Red Team, or once therewas, or even for the love of war itself?”

                “Only if you don’t close the box before all the bad things leave.”

                The voice had been unexpected to say the least. Not half a second later, the stocky Red had jumped to his feet, gun cocked at the ready and well on the alert.

                “Who said that!” He barked, whipping the sights about him. “I know yer out there… probably one of you dirty, good-fer-nothin’ Blues! Come out where I can… oh, who am I kiddin’? It’s no use anymore.” Dejected, he let himself drop on his rump and placed the shotgun back at his side, running tired hands across his forehead.

                “What is no use, Sergeant?” The voice called below him. “You can’t kid anyone, you’re too old for that.”

                Sarge regarded Caboose’s lofty form below him in the gloom for a moment before letting his head drop again. “What are you doin’ out here, son? Shouldn’t you be back home with yer commandin’ officer at this hour?”

                As soon as the words left his mouth, that same small, ignored part of Sarge’s brain felt a twinge of regret as an unpleasant silence set in between the two. He turned to look at the shape again, expectant despite himself to hear a reply. The larger man’s eyes were downcast.

                “He’s not here right now,” Caboose mumbled eventually, and Sarge let out a breath. “None of them are here. Not even Stupid Tucker. But I’ll see one of them someday soon.”

                He took a few steps toward the base walls to leap straight up and catch the lip above him before, with a single pull, launching himself over his palms to sprawl a half-metre behind Sarge on his belly. In a rare gesture of man-to-enemy camaraderie, solely out of the fact that there was nothing for him to posture anymore, Sarge extended a hand behind himself to help Caboose to his knees, then returned it as the Blue scooted forward to sit adjacent, swinging his legs over the walls and likely kicking pits into the concrete. They more-formally acknowledged each other’s presence with nods and half-smiles before lapsing into a second quietude spent listening to the sounds of the night and feeling the wind across their faces.

                Caboose spoke first. “Couldn’t sleep?”

                “No. You?”

                “Me neither,” he said. “I keep having nightmares. Not my usual nightmares, though. Just different. Sort of worse.”

                “You took a nasty fall back there,” Sarge said. “You’re lucky yer bones are as tough as they are.”

                “I know. I was scared. But now that’s over and I have something to do but I can’t do it right now because… just because.”

                Sarge glanced at him. It was easy to tell that Caboose was trying to maintain his blithe composure, but it was difficult for him this time as his still-shaking hands couldn’t stop fidgeting with the bottom hem of his sweater, often travelling to his face to sweep his shaggy hair out of his eyes and behind his ears. Or maybe it was how his entire body seemed to spasm and twitch here and there, as though his nerves were being stimulated uncontrollably. The constant movement was bothersome and Sarge didn’t spend much time observing him.

                “You got yourself yer very own base over there, kid. What are you gonna do with it now that it’s just you on yer own and the war’s over?”

                At this point Caboose looked directly at Sarge with wide, dilated eyes. The action disturbed Sarge slightly, and he subtly turned away, but couldn’t help but glance over once more. Amidst a turbulent muddle of emotion, there was genuine curiosity in his features.

                “What do you mean, war’s over?”

                Sarge heaved a sigh. Trying to sound as pleased with himself as possible, he exclaimed, “Yer identity has been erased, Blue. As far as Command can tell, you don’t even exist anymore! You’re now free to leave and wander wherever you like, and you can even take yer little computer program there with you! Go see the universe! ‘Specially while you’re still young! You know…” he paused to take a breath. “Make some _real_ adventures for yerself.”

                He looked over at Caboose, expecting childish excitement at the possibility of leaving everything behind and starting anew. He couldn’t imagine, in his own current state, why he wouldn’t, and was rather surprised to find the excitement never came; rather, Caboose frowned. His attention was directed down to his nervous hands and he bit his lip, as though struggling with his next sentence. A thread on his sweater began to unravel.

                “I think…” he trailed off, breaking the thread and fragmenting it between his fingers. “I think. That is not what I want to do with myself, Red Sergeant. I can’t really leave this place. I don’t want to. It is my home, and it’s the only home I have.”

                The shorter man was baffled. “What home is this, dummy? You’ve barely lived here more than a day. I don’t even recall what here is called. Hell, do you even have a bed to sleep in?”

                But Caboose still had that look on his face, and Sarge was confused. “No, place is the wrong word,” he managed. He wrung out his hands and pressed his knuckles against his forehead until he suddenly snapped back at to catch his eye. “It’s us. We Blues and Reds. Yes, that’s it. _You guys_ are home, my home. You’re my friends and home doesn’t have to be a place. My sister told me that home can be anywhere you are as long as your friends are there with you.”

                A strange moment passed where the two men sat still, staring at each other numbly. Caboose cocked his head in anticipation. Sarge just chuckled and gazed back out above the hills, expressionless.

                “You know, Caboose, you may be onto something there,” he said.

                “So much- so much of my home has been taken away from me,” Caboose continued. “All of my friends on Blue Team are gone. Church is gone. Tucker is gone. Sheila is gone. Texas is gone, too. Even Agent Washington is gone, and he was scarier than Texas was. All I have left is _most_ of you guys on the Red Team. That’s it, but it’s. Important to me. So no, I don’t want to leave no matter if the war is over or not. We will never not be together in some sort of war, Red Sergeant, even if nobody tells us we have to be. The part when it’s over is not here. Not yet.”

                Even as his body language betrayed his feelings, Caboose’s voice was as clear and boyish as it had ever been, as if nothing had changed. Sarge didn’t know how to react to this, and the unreadable expression remained as Caboose gently leaned back, breathing deeply with half-lidded eyes.

                “Do you think,” Sarge murmered, his voice in tremours, “that our war- our Red vs. Blue-“

                “You mean Blue vs. Red?”

                “Whatever it is- do you believe it can continue, even if Command doesn’t remember who you are?”

                Face flushed, he shuddered, some of the desperation starting to slip through. Any other time- in front of a military opponent, no less- he’d never forgive himself. Right now, however, he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait, and someone- _anyone_ \- was better than no-one at all. Caboose didn’t skip a beat.

                “Do you want it to continue?”

                Sarge felt his heart leap into his throat and swallowed. “But Command is wiped. We can’t receive any orders from them if they don’t have any to give against you. You can’t just make up orders!”

                “Yes you can,” Caboose shrugged. “You broke a whole bunch of Command rules back there a few days ago with us and Agent Washington. You saved my life, remember?”

                The soldier opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. “But- but even that…”

                “Silly Sergeant. You have done and given us many things of yours that you only did because we sometimes talked together, not with anybody on the outside. Other times we didn’t even talk. You didn’t have to do all that, but you did anyway. Church was talking about that when you helped him and Texas with their bodies. He didn’t really understand, but I do. And I think you do too.”

                In a fit of revelation, Sarge turned his memories over feverishly. Everything Caboose had said was true. He _had_ been breaking rules. He’d been breaking Command orders left right and centre on some of the greatest, very much _real_ adventures in his life. Not just during the past few days in lieu of Blue Team’s endless Freelancer stupidity, but years before that as well. Nobody had told him he needed to tail the Blues- Or O’Malley- in order to retrieve Lopez’s secret orders from Command. Those were just orders, already given a long time ago. For all that the Powers That Be had known, those orders had already been received and complied with; all of that, Sarge realized, was himself. Building the Blue Team those robots? That was himself. All those hostage negotiations? Also himself. Killing all the Wyoming duplicates and _saving the Blues_ one time out of how many to come? You guessed it. Almost everything he had done over those spectacular few years were grand schemes Sarge on his own had cooked up and, in the moment, given himself credit for as well. And he was damn proud of those schemes.

                “I don’t need Command for anything,” he mused in wonder. Echoes of the old beacon he’d thought gone forever started pulsing in his head again, tugging at his urge once more to take up the old arms. The vacuum left over in his mind began to turn a distinct shade of red around the corners. “I _can_ fight you guys again.”

                “You always could,” Caboose hummed. “Why should anything change just because somebody outside tells you I’m not around anymore when I always will be?”

                “You… I…!”

                The larger man couldn’t help but smile and settled his hands, now stilled, against his knees as Sarge began to laugh. It was joyful, relieved sound, and Caboose felt something in his chest stir and quietly- if not happily- begin to ache.

                “You know, Caboose,” came a chuckle, “I could have easily left yer ass for dead back there. I would have, too, just because you’re a dirty good-fer-nothin’ Blue and that will never change no matter what. But…” he softened. “I am never gonna say this again, but fer once I’m glad I didn’t.”

                Caboose’s smile widened as his ears turned pink, and a heavy hand clapped upon his shoulder. “You did good, kid. We on Red Team may just need you around a little longer to give this war some real colour again.”

                Sarge gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before withdrawing his hand to grin at his enemy and laugh a while longer. Caboose couldn’t help but look away as he blushed and fidgeted with his sweater some more before springing forward and wrapping up the Red in a tight hug, gripping his shirt and practically crushing him against his massive chest and shoulders.

                An abrupt grunt jumped from Sarge’s throat, partly from surprise and perhaps more from having the wind knocked out of him from the force of the action and the death grip he now had around his trunk. A cloud rapidly blanked his mind. A choked sob shook Caboose’s body, and Sarge felt his shoulder gradually dampen. Without second thought, his own arms managed to wriggle themselves free from Caboose’s grasp and press into his quivering back.

                “Easy, son,” he heard himself say. It didn’t feel so bad, and a small, ignored part of his brain gently closed his eyes and smiled. “You’re all right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Other people have commented on these two's relationship and I wanted to throw my two bits in as I rewatch the series in preparation for Season 15's conclusion. Sarge has always been relatively friendly with Caboose when they've been seen together away from the others occasionally, as in those cases he could easily kill him, but never does. I figure he just plain needs a Blue somewhere in his life to remind him who he is and why he does what he does, and now that I write it this concept gives me ideas...


End file.
